Today’s Free Lance-Star has a short article about Peter S. Carmichael, the historian who delivered the keynote remarks on the battle's 147th anniversary. In it, Mr. Carmichael discusses our tendency to romanticize war as opposed to acknowledging the horror that it truly is. He uses Richard Kirkland’s story as a potential detractor from the memory of an engagement that resulted in a slaughter. I could not be more pleased with his comments as Clint Ross and I have gone to great lengths in our upcoming film on Kirkland to portray the misery and suffering that was witnessed by our main character.
According to Carmichael: "Every war, no matter how vicious and brutal the enemy might be, demands our awareness, our knowledge of what our troops are enduring on the front, or we lose our political check on how our nation wages war." He added that so, too, people can lose sight of what the Kirkland monument expresses: "the great universal riddle of being a soldier."
Ironically, I just saw two newly edited sections of the film this weekend and the expert commentary and dramatic recreations are anything but romantic. Our story’s focus is completely built around the question of why a man would do what Kirkland did and why we remember it so today. Beyond a story of humanitarianism, it is equally presented as a commentary on the brutality of man. Mr. Carmichael’s comments are an indirect validation of our efforts and proves that we are definitely on the right track. We hope to post a preview segment of the film here by the end of the week. Stay tuned.
Updated: Monday, 14 December 2009 8:55 AM EST
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